Although applicable in principal to any type of connector, the present invention and its underlying problem will be hereinafter described in combination with RF connectors for installation on PCBs.
Printed Circuit Boards or PCBs usually are connected to the outside world via connectors. Especially in RF or high speed applications, the connectors may be directly soldered onto the PCBs.
However, the design of common PCB mounted connectors introduces parasitic effects, especially parasitic capacities that may negatively influence signal transmission. The parasitic effects increase with increasing frequency and may e.g. cause return loss. This is especially true for RF applications in the GHz frequency range.
Therefore, for applications in the GHz range with such connectors very complex and expensive amplifiers are required to compensate the connector loss.
Against this background, the problem addressed by the present invention is providing improved PCB connectors.